One Person's 'Welfare' Is Another Person's Ticket to the Middle Class

In an effort to drum up support for further budget cuts, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) released a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report recently on the state of "means-tested" spending, a category that he chooses to label broadly as "welfare." Some of these programs provide funding to states to support services such as foster care for children who are neglected or abused. Others offer money to cities to build housing. Some help pay for child care so that parents can go to work knowing that their children are safe, while others help students go to college or get job training in order to obtain better jobs and escape poverty. Still others are provided through the tax system and offer incentives that ensure higher earnings for working, low-income parents. According to the Senator, anything that is means-tested (except for veterans' benefits) is welfare. Head Start? Welfare. Pell Grants? Welfare. Adoption Assistance? Welfare. School lunch? You get the idea.

Eliminating or significantly paring down these programs will, according to the Senator, promote, "gainful employment and financial independence." While no one could argue with these goals, the truth is that cutting these programs will do just the opposite. Pell Grants, for example, make college possible for more than 9 million Americans; research shows that such need-based grant aid increases college enrollment among low- and moderate-income students and reduces their likelihood of dropping out of college.

If Senator Sessions truly cares about promoting work and opportunity, he should work to preserve these programs. These programs don't inhibit opportunity, they multiply it. They put families on the path to the middle class and the American Dream.